Um, No

     I was off today, but my sinuses are so painful that I'm going back to bed.

You Know What's Fun?

     "Fun" is exactly not when work calls you at 4:30 a.m. with a problem they should have called you about twenty hours earlier.  It was too late for an easy fix when they did call -- and they were too short-handed to fix it promptly.

The Last Tycoon; The First Spaghetti Carbonara

     Amazon Video got me -- started watching "The Last Tycoon" night before last. Now I'm three episodes in and I'm hooked.

     Like "Remember WENN," which it kind of resembles, right down to the perky gamine viewpoint character (though she certainly doesn't come from "Moosejaw or Elkhart or whatever combination of animal name and body part..."), it's a little hazy on year-specific style and fashion; but hey, it is Hollywood, right? The story is engrossing as can be and the sets are fabulous! Kelsey Grammer is a treat -- the man was born to play bastards -- and Matt Bomer is too handsome and knows it. I take issue with hairstyles; the men with hair wear it much too long around the ears -- about ten years too soon for it -- and the women's hair is mostly early-1930s and not always consistent with their socioeconomic status. Still and all, it's great good fun, a voyage back to an era both better and worse, full of glamor and desperation.

*  *  *

    Discovered pasta carbonara a few days ago and realized I had never had it.  It sounded delicious, but none of the Italian places close by offered the dish.  Finding it in the classic original form is unlikely -- you have to add raw eggs to very hot but not presently-heated spaghetti and pork, and form a sauce without actually scrambling the eggs: there's no small risk of undercooking.  Do it right and you get a lovely, silky end result.

     So I determined to give it a try myself last night.  The experiment was a success. Beginner's luck, maybe: the egg and cheese mixture neither scrambled nor ended up underdone! I was downsizing the recipe on the fly and made too much pasta, easily remedied. Used two kinds of cheese, Parmesan and Pecorino Romano, with a bit of bacon and a bit of pancetta. I should crumble the meat up more next time, but I was very happy with how it came out.

H'mm

     Haven't much today.  Working on some ideas, trying to process stuff in my life.

Mom

     My mother is once again in the hospital.  Been there several days and when she gets out, it will be to a place with better nursing support and, I am sorry to say, much smaller rooms.

     Where she has been living simply hasn't sufficient staff to give her the level of care she needs.  They had trouble remembering to change her breathing mask at bedtime and back again in the morning, and it is just too fiddly for Mom to do on her own.  This has contributed to her recent hospitalization and thus to the choice to move her.

     It's not an easy choice for any of us.

How I Stopped Time Getting Donuts

     It was 1977.  I was young, foolish and nearly broke.

     ...So, I'm working at a lousy part-time medium-market radio job after having dropped out of college and spending a summer working for The Worst Consulting Engineer In The U.S. (he's out of the biz by request now, so no worry), and my part-time hours include the Sunday Morning shift. It's wintertime, cold and dark. There's a place a half-mile down the road that starts turning out hot, fresh, deep-fried donuts -- and super-cheap donut holes by the bag! -- at 0630 or earlier.  They're best eaten fresh; let them cool down and they're kinda greasy lumps. Alas, the AM was a daytimer and not due on the air for another hour or more. There's no one to make a donut run! So I lace up a taped half-hour *paid* religious show on the deck in the production room where we played every other taped show on Sunday, lock the place up, speed down the road to the donut place with the radio blaring my station, get my treat, hop back in the car and halfway back to the station, the radio says, "...and in thoossse daaayyyssszzzzz bloooooooop........" and falls silent. I floor the accelerator.

      Hit the door running and see that the takeup reel had fallen off, there's tape all over the floor, the Maggie 1022 deck had (for some reason) kept running, and it all probably would have been okay, except the tape had started looping, tied a knot, built up and dragged the capstan motor to a stop. Hastily I hit Stop, pull it all clear, rip the tape (stretches into a nasty thread, of course), grab an empty takeup reel and set it to playing again -- all on the air.

      The conversation with the Operations Director on Monday was...epic. It did *not* include the word "donuts." There was no way I was going to admit to having left the building, a total no-no in 1977. Instead, I claimed to have been in the washroom, which (conveniently!), did not have an air monitor speaker for the FM. Somehow, I didn't get fired, and hung on long enough for my wisdom teeth to come in (do NOT do Beautiful Music hopped up on Anacin and Dr. Pepper, kids!) and a full-time job to open up at a "coffeepot" AMer closer to where I was living.

      But the levels were right all through that. Except when they weren't there at all.  Because that's just what you do.

Charlie Jade

     Charlie Jade is a film noir SF TV series, a Canadian/South African co-production from 2005 that takes place across three difference universes, one of which is our very own here and now.  And ours is in terrible danger....

     I just finished watching this tale of cosmic disaster narrowly averted and I recommend it.

     It's very nearly a familiar trope but the treatment is far from trite; Canadian SF writer Robert J. Sawyer wrote the show's "bible," or overall guideline, and he did a nice job of it.  So, too, did the cinematographer and director, who use different tonalities for the three universes (SF fans may be more familiar with this from its use in the the Firefly episode "Out Of Gas.")

     Some critics have disparaged the editing, which is in much the style of Homicide: Life On The Street, with repeats and jump cuts and odd camera angles: if you didn't like the NBC crime drama's editing, which had the harsh realism of the Baltimore Police Department to anchor it, you're unlikely to enjoy it in Charlie Jade.

     But what about the story?  I think it's darned good; more "graphic novel" than "novel" in places, but fully developed in a way not often found in graphic works -- or most television. There's a genuinely insane bad guy -- or is he? -- and a wildly varied cast, each struggling to figure out what's really going on.  The twists are nearly always unexpected and our heroes have plenty of pluck and grit.

     The overall story arc is satisfying; while there's room left for a second season, the 20 episodes stand up well as a complete story.  If you're willing to work with the director a little, there's a lot of SF enjoyment here.

DIY Ribbon Microphones

     It's totally a thing.  People build their own ribbon mikes.  It seems to have started with an influx of inexpensive, Chinese-made ribbon mikes, which could be improved with better transformers, thinner foil for the ribbon, changes in internal lead dress and so on.  Eventually, some of the people making mods decided the ribbon pickup itself, the "motor," was simple enough that they might as well build their own.

     Modern materials and methods -- rare-earth magnets, 3-D printing, strong glues -- have made the construction process  far easier than it once was and tiny, powerful magnets give good output in a small package.

     Why do I care?  You see, I own a couple of the most affordable of the classic ribbon microphones: the Electro-Voice V-2.  Well, almost two; at some point after they'd stopped making ribbon mikes and run out of replacement parts, E-V began "repairing" them by removing the motor, hacking at the supports, and bolting in a simple dynamic microphone pickup!  Fraud, you say?  It was an inexpensive mic in its day; users sent in a dead mic and received back a working microphone, more rugged than the one they'd sent in. I'm sure they and E-V at the time saw it as okay.

     One of my V-2s (a V-2A, with a multi-impedance output connector) is one of those "repaired" mikes.  The years have not been kind to the old dynamic element and it doesn't sound all that great.  I'd like to make it a ribbon mike again -- and if the kit I found this morning will fit, it looks as if I can!  Otherwise, I'm in for some finicky bench work; but either way, it's possible.

True, Not True, Speculation

     True: the Indianapolis Colts are making a concerted effort to adopt a more aggressive style of play, tougher and more physical.

     Probably not true: the Colts have posted memos reminding players that as a result of this, so-called "smoky eye" makeup is right out for both practice and game day, and will result suspension and possible disciplinary action; and advising cheerleaders that actual fighting with members of the opposing squad is absolutely forbidden.

     Speculation: there's an internship opening at the offices of the Colts.  Duties include general office work, helping with public relations and ensuring memos are posted to the correct bulletin board.
__________________________
     Prompted by a recent sports report on the hopes of Colts for this season and a memo about tryouts for their cheerleading squad that showed up at work.  Apparently, "fresh, natural faces" are in these days. Picture me with an eyebrow raised skeptically.

Oh, That Was No Fun

     Spent most of yesterday getting beat up by my own innards.  I don't know what caused it.  It was a miserable way to spend a day at work, compounded by the somewhat-different shift I have been working to cover a co-worker's vacation. 

     Here's hoping for better today.

That Was A Surprise

     So, I'd sent my boss a mildly exasperated e-mail about the state of affairs at the North Campus, pretty much just for the record, expecting the kind of pro forma response I was used to receiving from his predecessors.

     Nope.  He said, "Yes, the place needs to be checked regularly and it has become very disorganized.  You will be making regular visits.  To start, we will meet up there with [the building maintenance guy, whose boss he also is] and come up with a plan to straighten things out."

     The place has become half giant junk room and half a museum to its own past.  I must admit, some of the "museum" aspect will be difficult to give up.  Nevertheless, it's time to get the North Campus into the 21st Century.

Keep Moving

     You know what's sadder than going back to a place where you once spent all your working day, five days a week?  Going back and discovering your coworkers have been treating the place like their own private junkyard!

     I had occasion to work at the no-longer-staffed North Campus yesterday.  The place was in the middle of a mouse and ant invasion, ruining the toaster, French-press coffeemaker and paper/plasticware in the kitchenette (and so on), in part because staff making use of the site are throwing away food waste in the building instead of in the dumpster outside; a cold-water valve had managed to fail open at the janitor's closet slop sink and was merrily fountaining away; someone had left a storage battery charging on a wooden workbench in the huge, hot garage and dilute battery acid was spattered on the benchtop.  The place was a mess.  I'm going back to doing weekly walk-throughs and if the boss complains, I'll start doing them on my own time: when neglect-induced major failure hits, I'll be the one who has to clean it up, so I'm ahead if I can forestall it.

     Sheesh.